At Knobcon 2025, held Sept 5-7 in the Chicagoland area, Otter Mods introduced three new modules, which they plan to make available in both Moog and Eurorack modular synth formats.
The modules include:
The O.T.Te.R Oscillating Temporal Tesselation Repeater is a unique and versatile pattern generator style sequencer.
The Triquetra is a triple shift register module that produces syncopated gates and stepped CV output. Each register can be clocked and looped independently.
The Octet Itero is a traditional 8-step sequencer that can mute individual steps, adjust sequence length, and has multiple CV outputs.
Here’s a video overview of the modules from developer Elton Glover, via CatSynth TV:
The modules are available now in Eurorack format with the following pricing:
The O.T.Te.R – $300.00
Triquetra – $300.00
Octet Itero – $300.00
Glover told us that he expects to have the MU versions available within a few months.
At Knobcon 2025, held Sept 5-7 in the Chicagoland area, Conductive Labs previewed a new instrument, Terrain Synth, along with an interesting new approach to synthesis.
Conductive Lab CTO Steve Barile explained that Terrain Synth is new hardware synth that’s based on Terrain synthesis.
Here’s how Terrain synthesis works:
Terrains are essentially 3D maps of a landscape. You can think of Terrains like a topographic map that reflects the altitude of the land it maps.
As you move a point across the Terrain, you can sample the ‘altitude’ of the map. This series of samples creates a waveshape – similar to the way that exercise trackers can map over time the altitude of hikes or rides that you take.
The resulting waveshapes are a function of both the Terrain map and the path that you take across the Terrain.
The Terrain Synth lets you select from a library of Terrains and a library of paths, which results in a huge variety of waveshapes to start with. But it also lets you modulate the Terrain and path, and even to customize these options.
It gets much deeper than this, too. You can control the angle of your path, combine two terrains per voice, use multi-layer terrains and more. Other synthesis options include suboscillators; deep modulation options with LFOs, envelopes and more; several varieties of noise; a wide range of effects; layering; and more.
The Terrain Synth is also four-part multi-timbral, with 8 voices per part. This makes it a great partner for Conductive Labs’ NDLR, which is designed to let you sequence four different parts.
The Terrain Synth also has a dedicated mixer, so you control panning, volume and effects for each voice. It also lets you control how the four parts map to your keyboard, supporting splits, layering and more.
Conductive Labs have also designed the Terrain Synth to fit into modern electronic music studios, with support for DIN & USB MIDI, along with 6 CV/Gate patch points.
Here’s an overview with Conductive Labs CTO Steve Barile, via CatSynth TV:
Features:
Unique terrain oscillators
32-note polyphony, with 8-voices per timbre
Four timbres that can be split or stacked
Two morphable terrains per voice
Up to 7x unison per voice
Two sub-oscillators (-1 & -2 octaves) per voice
White Pink, Blue & Brown Noise
Oscillator sync, phase distortion, mirroring and windowing
17 math-based terrains with infinite resolution
Dozens of image-based terrains
User-loadable terrains
18 morphable paths with infinite resolution
Dedicated mixer for timbre layers
LFO, Envelope and Expressive-matrix per parameter
On-board effects, including Delay, Ping-Pong Delay, Reverb, Shimmer Reverb, Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Stereo Phaser, Overdrive and Decimator
Dedicated sequencer, arpeggiator and audition buttons
Hundreds of sortable presets
Onboard preset librarian
36 quick access patch favorites
Multi-level patches, Init, Copy & Paste
Infinite encoders
7″ IPS display
Selectable terrain view angles and color schemes
MIDI IO via 5-pin DIN, USB Host and USB Device ports
6x CV/Gates
3x expression pedal inputs
Left/Right balanced stereo and headphone (w/volume control)
Desktop/4U rack configurations
Terrain Synth Audio Demos:
Conductive Labs is planning to fund initial production of the Terrain Synth via a crowdfunding project. Barile said that they expect to open up orders within the next couple of weeks. You can sign up to be notified when this launches at the Conductive Labs site.
In the meantime, check out the details and overview, and share your thoughts on the Terrain Synth in the comments!
At Knobcon 2025, held Sept 5-7 in the Chicagoland area, muSonics previewed their latest creation, the Four Voice polyphonic synthesizer in MU format.
The muSonics Four Voice is a fully-modular system, with internal normalization. It builds on the company’s previously introduced Vanilla Synth, a MU format synth, inspired by classic Tom Oberheim designs.
The Four Voice essentially combines four Vanilla Synth voices in a single case, with a few additional models to handle polyphonic control.
The muSonics Four Voice features four of the company’s Vanilla Synth voices, plus some new modules, like the Polyphonic Envelopes module, that let you play the system as a polysynth
Like the Oberheim Four Voice that it takes inspiration from, the muSonics Four Voice is built from four completely independent synth voices.
This means that each voice has its own dedicated set of controls, and that creating a polyphonic patch requires adjusting the setting on each of the voices. This is more work than tweaking a computer-controlled poly design, but the result is that each voice has slight variations, creating a very rich and interesting sound.
It also means that you can configure the voices with distinct sounds and use the system as four multi-timbral voices and in other combinations.
Unlike the Oberheim Four Voice, the muSonics Four Voice is fully modular, and made up of individual MU modules. This means that you can treat it as four individual modular synthesizers, expanding the sonic possibilities immensely.
And you can treat the system as a large modular system, using modules from multiple voices to create complex patches to expand your sound design options.
The muSonic Four Voice is a dotcom-style Moog format design, meaning it offers the traditional look and usability of ‘man-size’ modules, but with modern power and CV/Gate standards and connectivity.
Large controls let you precisely dial in sounds. Clear layout makes it easy to understand the signal flow. And knobs are sized hierarchically, with the largest knobs reserved for parameters that you’re more likely to want to adjust in performance.
It’s clear that muSonic’s Suit and Tie Guy has put a tremendous amount of thought into the design. All this would be meaningless, though, if it sound great – which it does.
A video overview, via CatSynth TV, with muSonic’s Matt Baxley:
The system that muSonics introduced at Knobcon is a prototype and the format may change. Suit said that he’s considering reducing the width of the case and making the system a little taller, so that all controls are in easy reach of one hand.
Details on pricing and availability are still to come at the muSonics site.
